Nearly 60 percent of Americans support regulating cannabis in a manner similar to alcohol, according to the company’s analysis of 450,000 online responses over a nearly two year period.

Fifty-eight percent of respondents said that they would support a law in their state that would legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana like alcohol. Thirty-five percent of respondents said that they would oppose such a change in law.

The findings by CivicScience, which do not constitute a poll, are similar to actual poll results reported by Gallup last year.

New York teenager Joseph Beer smoked marijuana, climbed into a Subaru Impreza with four friends and drove more than 100 mph before losing control. The car crashed into trees with such force that the vehicle split in half, killing his friends.

This Oct. 8, 2012 file photo shows the wrecked Subaru Impreza in which four people died as it is loaded onto a flatbed truck on the Southern State Parkway in West Hempstead, N.Y., after and early-morning accident. At the wheel was a New York teenager, Joseph Beer, who had smoked about $20 worth of marijuana, before getting into the car with four friends, and driving over 100 mph before crashing into trees with such force that it split the car in half. As states liberalize their marijuana laws, public officials and safety advocates worry that more drivers high on pot will lead to a spike in traffic deaths. Researchers who have studied the issue, though, are divided over whether toking before taking the wheel in fact leads to more accidents. (AP Photo/Frank Eltman, File)

Beer, who was 17 in October 2012 when the crash occurred, pleaded guilty to aggravated vehicular homicide and was sentenced last week to 5 years to 15 years in prison.

As states liberalize their marijuana laws, public officials and safety advocates worry there will be more drivers high on pot and a big increase in traffic deaths. It’s not clear, though, whether those concerns are merited. Researchers are divided on the question. A prosecutor blamed the Beer crash on “speed and weed,” but a jury that heard expert testimony on marijuana’s effects at his trial deadlocked on a homicide charge and other felonies related to whether the teenager was impaired by marijuana. Beer was convicted of manslaughter and reckless driving charges.

Studies of marijuana’s effects show that the drug can slow decision-making, decrease peripheral vision and impede multitasking, all of which are important driving skills. But unlike with alcohol, drivers high on pot tend to be aware that they are impaired and try to compensate by driving slowly, avoiding risky actions such as passing other cars, and allowing extra room between vehicles.

On the other hand, combining marijuana with alcohol appears to eliminate the pot smoker’s exaggerated caution and to increase driving impairment beyond the effects of either substance alone.

“We see the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington as a wake-up call for all of us in highway safety,” said Jonathan Adkins, executive director of the Governors Highway Safety Association, which represents state highway safety offices. “We don’t know enough about the scope of marijuana-impaired driving to call it a big or small problem. But anytime a driver has their ability impaired, it is a problem.”

Colorado and Washington are the only states that allow retail sales of marijuana for recreational use. Efforts to legalize recreational marijuana are underway in Alaska, Massachusetts, New York, Oregon and the District of Columbia. Twenty-three states and the nation’s capital permit marijuana use for medical purposes.

It is illegal in all states to drive while impaired by marijuana.

Colorado, Washington and Montana have set an intoxication threshold of 5 parts per billion of THC, the psychoactive ingredient in pot, in the blood. A few other states have set intoxication thresholds, but most have not set a specific level. In Washington, there was a jump of nearly 25 percent in drivers testing positive for marijuana in 2013 — the first full year after legalization — but no corresponding increase in car accidents or fatalities.

Dr. Mehmet Sofuoglu, a Yale University Medical School expert on drug abuse who testified at Beer’s trial, said studies of marijuana and crash risk are “highly inconclusive.” Some studies show a two- or three-fold increase, while others show none, he said. Some studies even showed less risk if someone was marijuana-positive, he testified.

Teenage boys and young men are the most likely drivers to smoke pot and the most likely drivers to have an accident regardless of whether they’re high, he said.

“Being a teenager, a male teenager, and being involved in reckless behavior could explain both at the same time — not necessarily marijuana causing getting into accidents, but a general reckless behavior leading to both conditions at the same time,” Sofuoglu told jurors.

In 2012, just over 10 percent of high school seniors said they had smoked pot before driving at least once in the prior two weeks, according to Monitoring the Future, an annual University of Michigan survey of 50,000 middle and high school students. Nearly twice as many male students as female students said they had smoked marijuana before driving.

A roadside survey by the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration in 2007 found 8.6 percent of drivers tested positive for THC, but it’s not possible to say how many were high at the time because drivers only were tested for the presence of drugs, not the amount.

A marijuana high generally peaks within a half-hour and dissipates within three hours, but THC can linger for days in the bodies of habitual smokers.

Inexperienced pot smokers are likely to be more impaired than habitual smokers, who develop a tolerance. Some studies show virtually no driving impairment in habitual smokers.

Two recent studies that used similar data to assess crash risk came to opposite conclusions.

Columbia University researchers compared drivers who tested positive for marijuana in the roadside survey with state drug and alcohol tests of drivers killed in crashes. They found that marijuana alone increased the likelihood of being involved in a fatal crash by 80 percent.

But because the study included states where not all drivers are tested for alcohol and drugs, most drivers in fatal crashes were excluded, possibly skewing the results. Also, the use of urine tests rather than blood tests in some cases may overestimate marijuana use and impairment.

A Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation study used the roadside survey and data from nine states that test more than 80 percent of drivers killed in crashes. When adjusted for alcohol and driver demographics, the study found that otherwise sober drivers who tested positive for marijuana were slightly less likely to have been involved in a crash than drivers who tested negative for all drugs.

“We were expecting a huge impact,” said Eduardo Romano, lead author of the study, “and when we looked at the data from crashes we’re not seeing that much.” But Romano said his study may slightly underestimate the risk and marijuana may lead to accidents caused by distraction.

Many states do not test drivers involved in a fatal crash for drugs unless there is reason to suspect impairment. Even if impairment is suspected, if the driver tests positive for alcohol, there may be no further testing because alcohol alone may be enough to bring criminal charges. Testing procedures also vary from state to state.

“If states legalize marijuana, they must set clear limits for impairment behind the wheel and require mandatory drug testing following a crash,” said Deborah Hersman, former chairwoman of the National Transportation Safety Board. “Right now we have a patchwork system across the nation regarding mandatory drug testing following highway crashes.”

A group called Show-Me Cannabis discussed marijuana legalization during a town hall meeting Thursday at the community center in Maryville, Mo.

The group hopes to put a question on the November 2016 ballot to legalize marijuana statewide, similar to legislation that has already passed in other states.

Marijuana legalization, a much broader proposition than the medical marijuana proposal now on the November ballot in Florida, is on the ballot this fall for Oregon and Alaska and the District of Columbia.

Amber Langston, executive director of the Missouri activist group, said Show-Me Cannabis hopes to show potential voters the wisdom of taxing and regulating marijuana like alcohol.

“By taking marijuana out of the illegal marketplace, we can make it transparent and accountable,” Langston said.

Vineyard at Paraduxx Winery in Napa, California. In the background is the winery’s dramatic-looking 10-sided fermentation facility. The fruit in Paraduxx wines is cultivated from four Napa Valley vineyards. Each site produces grapes with distinct attributes that reflect the variations in soil, terrain, microclimate and exposure. (Staff Photo / Michael Pollick)

Two of this state’s best-known wine counties — Napa and Sonoma — are adjacent to each other geographically.

But when it comes to medical marijuana, they couldn’t be farther apart.

Eighteen years after the passage of Proposition 215 allowed medical marijuana’s use in the Golden State, Sonoma has five or more dispensaries, including three in the largest town, Santa Rosa.

In neighboring Napa County, however, there’s not a single dispensary. Not one.

The contrast — a live-and-let-live attitude in Sonoma, vs. a bar-the-doors approach in Napa — is likely to be repeated in Florida. (Demographically speaking, the two communities also are similar to swaths of Southwest Florida, with high-income residents and pricey homes).

In the same way that some jurisdictions choose to exclude alcoholic beverages today, 81 years after the end of federal prohibition, communities can be expected to divide up over the value of marijuana for decades to come.

As was the case in California after its medical marijuana amendment was passed in 1996, Florida’s Amendment 2 leaves plenty of room for legislative rule-making, and then for local discretion that will decide where, and how, consumers and patients are able to gain access to pot.

In California last year, the State Supreme Court upheld the right of cities and counties to decide whether or not to allow medical marijuana operations, even though Proposition 215 made them legal on a statewide basis.

“Using the terms ‘dry’ and ‘wet’ counties is a good way of explaining what is likely to happen in those states that have opt-out procedures,” said Gordon Brownell, a lawyer who has worked on both sides of the marijuana fence. He opened up the west coast for the National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws starting in 1974. Before that, he served in the Nixon White House and then on California Gov. Ronald Reagan’s successful 1971 reelection campaign.

Brownell, a practicing attorney, lives in Calistoga, a small town in the heart of Napa’s wine country, so he has a front-row seat to the cannabis action.

He is careful about what he says. He does not subscribe to the notion that it is the wine industry that has stopped medical marijuana from getting a foothold in Napa County.

On the other hand, he said, “I haven’t met a wine industry executive that is in favor of the medical marijuana.”

Sitting in the tasting room at Paraduxx Winery along Napa County’s Silverado Trail, Crane Carter is that guy who keeps telling the powers that be what they do not want to hear.

This 56-year old resident of the Napa town of St. Helena wishes to remind the valley’s 400-plus wineries that ending one kind of prohibition set the stage for them to make $13 billion a year.

Now, he says, Napa needs to come to terms with the other major intoxicant — cannabis.

“Nobody wants to talk about it because things are good for them,” Carter said. “All the water that gets stolen by illegal marijuana growers in this county? It is critical this year,” with a serious drought.

Carter became a medical marijuana patient in 2005 after a doctor recommended it for post traumatic stress disorder.

“There is a wellness side to this,” he said. “PTSD, cancer. These people can’t go out and fight. That is what I am doing.”

In 2009, Carter became the first person in Napa County to get a business license to grow marijuana for others in the community.

“We live right downtown. We can grow great marijuana here,” Carter says in an interview with the Herald-Tribune.

He also created an affinity group called Napa Valley Marijuana Growers, which has its own website, with links to “Joints We Love.”

That list includes Paraduxx Winery, where we tasted several $50 vintages.

The Paraduxx Z of 2011, the brochure told us, gains its “decidedly Californian personality” by “fusing the robust flavors of California’s native Zinfandel with the grandeur of Cabernet Sauvignon.”

But even after the winery gave us free sips and allowed us to take endless photographs, it was like calling an empty house trying to get a Paraduxx Winery representative on the phone to say whether the business-supported establishment of marijuana farms or even dispensaries in Napa. Calls were made to Paraduxx media relations office and then to its parent company, GI Partners of San Francisco, which owns both Paraduxx and its sister winery, Duckhorn.

So we tried the Napa Valley Vintners, the trade association that represents the lions share of the wineries.

Napa Valley Vintners communications manager Cate Conniff represents vintners with billions in revenue in Napa County. But she could not bring herself to use the name of the other intoxicant in an actual sentence.

“I just don’t have any background,” Conniff said. “No.

“We grow fine wine grapes and make great wines, and that is our area of expertise.”

“California is messy,” said Robert Jacob, who is the chief executive of Peace in Medicine, a marijuana collective with operations in the two neighboring Sonoma County towns of Sebastopol and Santa Rosa.

Jacob has another role as well. He is the first person from the cannabis industry who has become a mayor, a fact that the New York Times took note of in December 2013.

“That it happened in Sebastopol, a city in Sonoma County that retains its hippie past despite the gentrification of recent years that has made it known more for its Pinot Noir than its traditional Gravenstein apples, was hardly a surprise,” the Times wrote.

Jacob would like to get into Napa, and now that he is the first-ever mayor in the United States to also be involved in owning a marijuana dispensary, you would think he would stand a chance.

In fact, his Peace in Medicine group was one of those that applied to open a dispensary under a 2010 initiative by the City of Napa. The city paid $80,000 for a study that concluded that a dispensary would be a good idea.

Then, in December 2013, the city council held another public hearing on medical marijuana. After listening to some speakers, the council voted to kill their own dormant 2010 ordinance, effectively closing the door for the foreseeable future.

Those speaking against the ordinance included a couple of non-profits that deal with troubled youth, but also Napa County District Attorney Gary Leiberstein, Superintendent of schools Barbara Nemko, and city of Napa police chief Richard Melton.

“The majority of their comments focused on the heightened risks to youth if a dispensary opened in Napa,” the Napa Valley Register reported.

There remains a give and take on the issue in Sonoma County. In March, for example, Sonoma supervisors rejected a proposed medical marijuana dispensary south of Santa Rosa, saying it was too close to a residential area and two school bus stops.

Jacob estimated that 10 percent of his patients drive to Santa Rosa for their cannabis products, which include not only cured buds for smoking but also edibles and topicals.

“We are forcing them to spend money on gallons of gas,” he said. “We are hitting some of our lowest-income and neediest citizens with this.”

But his loyalties are torn.

As a mayor, he is boosting the city’s and county’s tax receipts by keeping to the status quo.

“Sonoma County enjoys a significant revenue from the sales of cannabis,” Jacob said. “It enjoys that revenue because it is surrounded by three counties that have little or no dispensaries — Mendocino, Napa and Marin.”

Scott Webster, a cork salesman who makes a good living from Napa Valley wineries, took a break from his work on the stoppers for bottles of wine that cost $250 or more to discuss the Napa cannabis conundrum.

“I am sniffing corks,” he said. “I am smelling each and every cork for some ultra-premium bottles of wine.”

At the same time, and without any visible signs of concern, he confirms that he and his son grow their own marijuana, legal under California’s Compassionate Care Act of 1996, on a 20-acre parcel overlooking the Silverado Country Club.

“Marijuana is so acceptable these days, my goodness,” Webster said. “No one is looking down their nose at you because you use marijuana.”

Instead, the de-facto prohibition of the other intoxicant in Napa might have its roots in a desire not to mess with success.

On top of the billions in wine sales, there is the annual flood of three million or more tourists who crowd the roads of the Napa Valley each summer and fall, determined to taste something good and get a photo of mom and the kids standing in front of some grapes.

Wine tours has become one of the top tourism draws in California.

“They know what lines their pockets, and they are not going to waiver from that at all,” Webster said. “Who can blame them, really?”

COMING SUNDAY:

At least in California, medical marijuana hasn’t attracted the demographic one might expect. Instead, the typical patient is in their fifties or sixties, and uses cannabis to relieve pain and other chronic ailments, or diseases liked glaucoma. Meanwhile, in Colorado, a couple that once lived in Southwest Florida has set up a successful cannabis business — and is eyeing the Sunshine State for their next venture. Read more about the issue in Part IX of the series “Medical Marijuana.”

Even if Floridians approve a November referendum legalizing medical marijuana, Southwest Florida bankers say they would remain somewhat paranoid about providing financial services to cannabis-related businesses.

Bankers fear that allowing medical marijuana purveyors to open simple checking accounts would be violating federal laws that can carry strict penalties and harsh fines.

And that has presented a significant challenge for the cannabis trade in the roughly two dozen states that have legalized marijuana for medical or recreational use.

Florida would be no different, analysts say, because marijuana is a cash-only industry that in most cases cannot accept credit cards from customers.

“It doesn’t matter how many states legalize it,” said Charlie Murphy, president and chief executive at Sarasota’s The Bank of Commerce. “I am a bank that is regulated by federal law, and it is still against federal law to possess and sell marijuana.”

That conundrum exists despite “guidance” issued in February by the U.S Treasury intended to clear the way for the banking industry to do business with legal marijuana sellers, such as those in Colorado and California.

But skeptical bankers say the new guidelines do not go far enough. Many say they would be uncomfortable handling medical marijuana money unless Congress changes federal law and makes cannabis legal.

Still, while some of Florida’s more buttoned-down bankers might avoid legal weed merchants, others may take a chance on serving the potentially lucrative businesses that would crop up around medical marijuana.

“I don’t think there is a stigma to it,” said Tramm Hudson, a longtime and now retired Sarasota banker.

“Just as a lot of doctors will write prescriptions for that stuff, a lot of bankers will be willing to take that money and bank it for them.”

Last month the U.S. House of Representatives backed the Treasury guidance, voting in support of making it easier for banks to do business with legal pot shops and medical marijuana providers.

But some say that vote was largely symbolic, as pot sales remain prohibited under federal law and because the U.S. Senate is not expected to take up the issue anytime soon.

Medical marijuana could be a $785 million annual industry in Florida if voters approve Amendment 2 in November, according to KC Stark, who runs the MMJ Business Academy, which conducts seminars for businesses and investors in the cannabis industry.

“When Amendment 2 passes in Florida, depending on how the regulations are written, we may be in line to experience an economic windfall like never before,” said Tom Quigley, head of the Florida Cannabis Coalition.

For his part, Murphy says he has no qualms about doing business with medical marijuana sellers, with one giant caveat: It would have to be legal under federal law.

“There are other industries that are worse than marijuana,” he said. “Some bankers may have some philosophical differences and decide not to do so, but only a small minority would have that problem.”

In Colorado and Washington, the two states that have legalized retail, recreational sales of marijuana to consumers, banking services are almost non-existent.

As a result, marijuana shop owners run cash-only businesses that leave them with unwieldy amounts of greenbacks and make them attractive targets for robbers.

The problem is so acute that some Colorado cannabis merchants have tried spraying their money with air freshener to eliminate the marijuana smell in an effort to trick banks into accepting the cash.

To get around the need for a bank, several medical marijuana dispensaries in California and elsewhere have installed ATMs in their lobbies. But that means restocking the machines with cash daily so customers can use debit or credit cards to obtain money for purchases. There, too, however, dispensary operators must handle large amounts of cash that present security and other concerns.

Under the federal Bank Secrecy Act and other anti-money laundering and anti-terrorism laws, financial institutions are required to report all cash deposits exceeding $10,000.

“That’s the big concern to bankers,” Hudson said. “The act requires banks to be vigilant about reporting large cash deposits, or any suspicious activity where there might be money laundering or drug activity.”

Despite the U.S. Treasury’s latest guidance, many banks say they would still fear prosecution if they accepted proceeds from the sale of a controlled substance — legal or not.

Wells Fargo Bank, which operates 290 offices in Colorado and Washington, will not serve marijuana businesses — even though they are legal there.

“We abide by all federal laws, and the distribution and sale of marijuana is illegal, so we don’t bank the sale of medical or recreational marijuana,” said Cristie Drumm, a spokeswoman for Florida’s second-largest bank.

Bank of America, the largest bank in the U.S. and in Florida, maintains the same attitude. It has 187 branches in Colorado.

“At Bank of America, as a federally regulated financial institution, we abide by federal law and do not bank marijuana-related businesses,” spokesman Mark Pipitone said.

Some states with legalized sales — and a vested interest in tracking and collecting tax revenue from cannabis shops — are attempting to spark changes that could lay a foundation that Florida banks could emulate if Amendment 2 becomes law.

Lawmakers in Colorado, for example, recently passed a bill designed to create the world’s first state-level financial system for the marijuana industry.

It allows legal marijuana shops to form “cannabis co-ops,” similar to a credit union, which would pool resources and allow them, in turn, to offer checking accounts, loans and other services.

The Federal Reserve, however, must still approve the system, and even supporters admit that may be a long shot.

The Colorado Banking Association, meanwhile, is prodding Congress to change the federal law that criminalizes marijuana so that bankers would no longer fear the threat of prosecution.

“Banking services would greatly resolve state regulation and taxation issues, serve customers and businesses in legal transactions and help public safety,” said Don Childears, president of the bankers’ association.

In Washington, two credit unions — owned by members, not investors — are working with legal marijuana businesses, but with many restrictions.

Numerica Credit Union, a $1.3-billion-asset institution in Spokane, is allowing growers, processors and producers of cannabis products to make deposits — but significantly, not retail dispensers, who arguably need the service the most.

AURORA, COLORADO — As Realtor Rona Hanson opens the front door of a two-story home she has listed for sale here, she casually explains why the house would be ideal for a family looking to grow marijuana indoors.

Rona Hanson, a Denver-area Realtor, began specializing in marijuana-related properties as Colorado began allowing sales of recreational marijuana at the beginning of 2014. (STAFF PHOTO / MICHAEL POLLICK)

By her own admission, the 60-something empty nester was just another struggling Denver real estate agent at the beginning of this year.

But then the started “specializing,” by running an advertisement in Westword, a popular local alternative weekly newspaper, with a double-entendre tinge to it.

Her first ad ran in January, just as Colorado became the first state in the U.S. to allow recreational marijuana sales. The new law also allows residents to grow their own plants, within limits.

“Need room to grow?” Hanson asked in the ad.

In Colorado, the first state to make marijuana legal for all adults, business is booming — and sales gains are coming from some unlikely quarters.

It’s not just the direct sales of pot, either. Businesses ranging from real estate landlords to office supply stores and from hoteliers to candy manufacturers are all finding ways to exploit and capitalize on what some are already terming a “rush” not unlike the push to mine gold here more than 150 years ago.

Civic institutions, including university campuses and symphony orchestras, also have been touched by cannabis.

“There are a whole bunch of ancillary industries that are benefitting. That is the beauty of this brand new green rush,” said Rachel K. Gillette, a practicing attorney in LaFayette, Colorado, and executive director of Colorado NORML, the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws.

Sergeant Green Leaf Wellness Center operates from this small building in Georgetown, Colorado, which has a population of 1,023 people. But the dispensary is conveniently located near an on-off ramp for Interstate 70, less than an hour from Denver and on the way to the popular ski areas of Breckenridge and Vail. (STAFF PHOTO / MICHAEL POLLICK)

420Supply Company LLC, founded in January by a businessman who for the last 20 years has specialized in office and janitorial supply sales to Fortune 500 companies, is typical of the new brand of entrepreneur.

“Our motto is everything they need but the weed,” said 420Supply president Tom Schultz, of his medical marijuana supply business.

Using catalogs of supplies he already had tapped into for his office supply business, Schultz branched out, layering on specialty products like bags and pouches, child-resistant bottles and jars, locking transport bags, rubber gloves and ethyl alcohol, which can be used both for cleaning items like trimming scissors and for making concentrates from raw marijuana.

In a state that already has issued 900 marijuana-related business licenses, Schultz has divided Colorado up into five sales territories.

“Per territory, it is a good $10-million-a-year opportunity,” Schultz said.

On July 1, Colorado opened the licensing gates wider. Until then, medical dispensaries were the only ones allowed to open recreational counters, and each had to grow 70 percent of their own crops. But starting this month, the state began issuing licenses for those who want to set up retail-only stores.

“With the new licensing, you actually have a wholesale market,” Schultz said. “The new people don’t have to provide 70 percent from their own grow.

“What we are anticipating is a huge growth in the number of stores, and then a cutback because there will be too many.”

Real estate’s marijuana boom

Few industries have fared better under the new pot laws than commercial real estate.

The market for industrial property in the Denver area, for instance, has become among the tightest in the country, tied with Miami with a vacancy rate of 6.6 percent, according to CBRE, the world’s largest commercial real estate services firm.

That is a direct result of marijuana-related business growth, brokers say, as businesses from grow operations to supply companies like Schultz’s suddenly find themselves in need of space with special lighting and security. Many tenants say they prefer plain vanilla warehouses in industrial parks because they are nondescript.

But being associated with the pot trade has had a down side for tenants. When many landlords realize a business is cannabis related — like Medically Correct LLC, which makes pot-infused candy bars in Denver —— they charge higher rents on the assumption that their tenants can afford it.

“As soon as as somebody finds out you are cannabis, the rent doubles, triples, quadruples,” said Bob Eschino, co-founder of the edibles company, which is now dishing out about 45,000 candy bars a month.

He and his partner just leased a new space which will more than double their production capability.

Tourism also has received a bounce since recreational marijuana became legal for adults.

While exact numbers have yet to be disseminated, and officials seem somewhat reluctant to discuss marijuana’s impact on visitations, the Colorado Tourism Office recently paid for a survey that included questions on whether legal marijuana “might influence somebody’s decision to come to Colorado,” said Michael Driver, director of international marketing for the agency.

“The initial results have been mostly positive,” Driver said. “It has probably moved the needle a bit. It presents us as more progressive and liberal and typically Europeans like that, as opposed to the opposite.

“There has been pretty strong curiosity from Japan, too,” he said.

The only negative international feedback that Driver has received has been from China, where most tour operators have government ties “and don’t want to be seen promoting travel to a place that has legalized marijuana.”

Statistics through May at Denver International Airport bear out Driver’s statements.

At an airport where April and May set back-to-back records for traffic, the stand-out performance came in the number of international visitors, up 18.8 percent from a year earlier.

Airport spokesman Heath Montgomery notes a variety of factors contributed to the increase, including a new flight to Tokyo opened up in June 2013.

In a July 1 statement covering travel through May, the airport cited strong increase in origin and destination traffic by Southwest and Frontier airlines and an acceleration in connecting traffic for United, “all of which helped fuel two consecutive months of record-setting traffic at Denver International Airport.”

Denver’s convention center has felt an impact. After the National Cannabis Industry Association established an office in the city, it staged the first-ever National Cannabis Summit at the Colorado Convention Center in June.

Twelve hundred people paid $450 each to attend seminars with cannabis consultants about growing, accounting and avoiding legal risk in the pot trade.

Troy Dayton, chief executive of ArcView Group, a pre-eminent marijuana investor network and market research firm, gave the keynote speech.

“Hippies keep being right,” Dayton told the group. “They were right about renewable energy. They were right about organic food. And they’re right about cannabis.”

Changes in marijuana laws

Hoteliers and college campuses, meanwhile, seem to be dealing with the changes in marijuana laws warily.

While lodging operators say they appreciate the additional room nights, the increased business comes with a new set of rules.

At the Baymont Inn and Suites near the Denver International Airport, for instance, prominently posted signs in the elevators warn guests that that they are prohibited from smoking either tobacco or marijuana in the hotel, and that they risk paying a $250 cleaning fee they are found in violation.

College campuses, long a haven for illegal pot consumption and sales, are also — at least publicly — reluctant to embrace the new laws.

While college and university applications and enrollments in the state are rising, officials say it is too soon to tell whether there’s any link to the legalized pot sales that went into effect in January.

“We have found no correlation between marijuana legalization and increased admission numbers,” Ryan Huff, a University of Colorado spokesman, wrote in an email.

But there is little question that interest in Colorado higher education — for whatever reason — is up significantly.

At the University of Colorado, applications for fall classes spiked 28 percent from a year earlier, Huff said.

The school needs to walk a fine line, though, because at least part of its funding is derived from the federal government, which officially still considers marijuana both illegal and dangerous.

“Federal law makes marijuana illegal and through the Drug Free Schools and Communities Act, requires the campus to take measures against the use of drugs on campus,” Huff wrote. “The campus can face a loss of federal funding for failing to enforce this provision.”

Nonetheless, the tide of cannabis appears to be sweeping over the state like a winter snow storm over the Rocky Mountains.

It has even infiltrated the cultural and academic life of Colorado.

Most notably, the state’s symphony orchestra this spring kicked off a string of concerts called “Classically Cannabis: The High Note Series.”

The Colorado Symphony Orchestra agreed to the fundraising concerts sponsored by four cannabis-related businesses.

The series, according to the symphony’s website, “marks a new partnership between the Colorado Symphony and the industry that supports legal cannabis in Colorado, which is expected to contribute more than $67 million in tax revenue to the State of Colorado in 2014.”

The first concert in the “Classically Cannabis” series, held May 23, was covered by the New York Times, which stated that “the brass quintet ran through popular selections by Puccini and Debussy, playing on in a corner as the unmistakable smell of marijuana smoke filled the echoing space.”

The concerts did not come without controversy, and they touched off a mild argument over marijuana and its place in society.

Denver’s City Council registered its displeasure when the symphony initially promoted the “High Note” concerts as open to the public.

That is because Denver — and Colorado, despite the change in laws — maintain rules that prohibit the public consumption of marijuana.

Still, that did not stop orchestra CEO Jerry Kern from forging a compromise. He suggested the concerts that allowed cannabis smoke breaks should be invitation-only. City Hall went along.

In September, the orchestra will feature a cannabis-themed classical performance at Red Rocks, the famous outdoor amphitheater in Denver that can seat up to 10,000.

Because Red Rocks does not allow smoking, no negotiations were necessary, Kern said.

He believes working with the new cannabis industry will attract a younger audience to performances and raise additional money.

Ben Holmes, owner of Centennial Seeds, shows off his pure Cannabis Indica plants from the Kush region of Afghanistan. Holmes started Centennial in 2009 and has amassed his own seed bank of more than 300 landrace strains of marijuana. His company, based in Lafayette, Colo., is providing the University of Colorado with genetic material for its Cannabis Genomic Research Initiative. Researchers Nolan Kane and Daniela Vergara hope to map connections within the cannabis genome that determine height, genetic make-up of the buds, resistance to disease, and many other variables. (STAFF PHOTO / MICHAEL POLLICK)

One of the region’s best-known marijuana dispensaries, The Farm of Boulder, is a sponsor, as is Leafly, an Internet-based dispensary directory, and Ideal 420 Soil, a New Hampshire-based soil and nutrient supplier.

Scientists at the University of Colorado, meanwhile, are using genetic material to map cannabis’ genome from another supplier — Centennial Seeds, of Lafayette, Colorado.

“This is an Afghan Kush variety,” Holmes says, showing off a five-foot tall plant. “Probably some of the best genetics on earth come from the Afghan strains.”

For Hanson, the Denver-based Realtor, specializing her real estate business has meant a lot more driving.

She is taking advantage of the boom to focus on more expensive properties, some of which are far from her home turf, or “farm area” in real estate parlance.

She has even branched out into commercial properties.

“Right now I am going all the way down to Pueblo and all the way up to Fort Collins,” she said.

Pueblo County, two hours south of Denver, “is very open to marijuana and they are really seeing lot of growth down there.”

After Hanson’s “Need Room to Grow?” ad ran, she began getting calls from all over. One came from a former Westword reporter at online magazine Slate, which led to an article about the pot boom that featured her.

That, in turn, led to a CBS News interview — and other business leads.

A western Colorado ranch owner more than 200 miles away from where Hanson usually sells property saw the CBS piece and asked her to list his property near the Utah border.

The ranch features a completely underground marijuana growing operation that is licensed for medical cannabis production. The asking price is $1.5 million.

But while the ranch is beautiful, buyers have been reluctant because it is in Mesa County, which is not known for being cannabis-friendly, Hanson said.

Her Aurora listing, she concedes, might need a complete make-over. But on the upside, it is in a community that has recently become more cannabis-friendly.

On July 1, the city decided after more than a year of study to allow up to 24 recreational sales outlets.

It has other attributes, as well. There is no homeowners association to contend with, for starters, and there is enough land that neighbors are unlikely to notice any potentially pungent odors that might waft outside the house.

The house has a basement with its own bathroom and kitchen. The basement bathroom, complete with a shower, would allow for significant water drainage, Hanson notes, and the kitchen countertop and sink would allow for plants to be repotted easily or for clones — baby plants from shoots taken from another plant — to be transferred.

“Maybe 50 percent of my clientele are people who have found me on-line and want to move to Colorado for our law,” said Hanson.

“Of that number I would say 80 percent have medical marijuana needs and feel persecuted or threatened in their current location. They just don’t want to get arrested.”

As more and more states approve some form of legal marijuana, the issue of how to conduct banking takes on greater and greater signicance. Up until now, the businesses involved one way or the other in cannabis have had to develop workarounds. In many cases, dispensaries actually have ATM machines installed so that customers can use their plastic to obtain cash and then pay the budtender.

But the federal government may finally be responding, in the form of this banking amendment that was approved last week by the House of Representatives and is now headed for the Senate.

Marijuana Policy Project provided this update:

House Approves Amendment to Help Marijuana Businesses

JULY 17, 2014

By Ryan Smith

The House of Representatives approved an amendment Wednesday that will facilitate marijuana businesses in working with banking institutions, International Business Times reports.

The Heck Amendment, named after its sponsor Rep. Denny Heck (D-WA), was approved by a vote of 231-192. The amendment effectively blocks the SEC and Treasury Department from penalizing banks who lend money to legitimate marijuana businesses in areas where they can legally do business. The Heck Amendment was supported by both parties and represents growing bipartisan support of marijuana businesses, especially after the recent vote by Congress to defund of the DEA’s ability to interfere with medical marijuana patients and businesses that are in compliance with state law. If the Heck Amendment is implemented, it will be a major victory in the effort to allow legitimate businesses to control the marijuana market.

In the past, many financial institutions have shied away from assisting marijuana businesses for fear that the federal government will go after them for it, forcing most to operate on a cash-only system. Because of this, they are required to transport thousands of dollars physically, making them targets for robberies and other crimes. Wednesday’s vote is the first step towards allowing legitimate marijuana businesses to utilize alternative forms of payment, such as credit cards and bank accounts, like all other businesses.

Established Florida nurseries are lining up to become one of five state-sanctioned growers for a specialized strains of marijuana that will not get anyone high but can be used to prevent seizures.

The Florida legislature, which had failed to hold hearings on medical marijuana bills before last spring, rushed to pass the special marijuana law hurriedly passed law in this year’s session.

The possible impetus for the legislature’s change of heart may have included heart-wrenching accounts by Dr. Sanjay Gupta on CNN showing how so-called high-CBD marijuana extracts could stop patients including children from experiencing violent seizures.

But also playing a role was the fact that in late January, Florida’s Supreme Court cleared the way for a proposed medical marijuana amendment to the state’s constitution to appear on the state’s ballots this November. That amendment would open the door to physicians recommending full-strength marijuana for an unlimited variety of potential ailments.

Meanwhile, growing the specialized pot is not without its risks. The law the legislature crafted requires that the plant material be tested. It must have more than a certain percentage of CBD, the organic compound believed to help with seizures, and less than a certain percentage of the psycho-active ingredient in cannabis, an organic compound called THC. If the THC is too high, the crop must be destroyed.

On the other hand, becoming a licensed nursery for this initial state endeavor could put a nursery in an excellent position later on, assuming passage of Amendment 2 in November.

The enterprise would have the systems in place for growing, testing, and marketing the crops when the market expands.

The National Cannabis Industry Association has estimated that Florida could have an $800 million a year industry assuming passage of Amendment 2 and given a couple of years to establish infrastructure for growing, processing and retailing.

During a recent reporting trip, I interviewed Dennis Peron and John Entwistle, who live in San Francisco. Both men played key roles in establishing what appears to be the first medical cannabis dispensary in the United States in modern history — the San Francisco Cannabis Buyers Club. The Herald-Tribune soon will publish an article on Peron. That feature will show up in print and on this new site, “marijuana.heraldtribune.com,” along with a number of other articles in the same series.

Here is Entwistle in the basement of the home the two men share. He explains how, in 1993, Peron started selling marijuana to AIDS patients, taking cash, and inviting TV crews to videotape it all. This was three years before Peron co-authored and promoted the nation’s first statewide medical marijuana initiative, known as Proposition 215.